Coming Home (Norris Lake Series) (2 page)

Caitlyn opened the backdoor and shooed the dog outside. “Come on baby; let’s go out in the yard?” Barking with excitement, Patty ran past the pool and the cabana house to the back yard.  Caitlyn walked out and locked the gate behind the dog so she couldn’t come back into the yard and accidentally fall into the pool.

Caitlyn went back inside.  Dominic pulled off his coat and tie; his white starched shirt was wrinkled from a long day sitting in an office chair.  He stood at the kitchen island of cold black granite and flipped through the day’s mail. 

“I am sorry you had a hard day.”  She put her arms around him and hugged.  He hugged her back. 

“Same shit different day,” he snarled and stalked back to the master bedroom changing into to a pair of black shorts and a white t-shirt.  He dropped his work clothes on the dresser. 

“Get me a coke will you?” He asked as he walked into his home office and pressed the button to turn on his computer.

She brought him a large coke.  “You want something to eat?”

“No I ate earlier.  I just want to sit here with some fucking peace and quiet away from everyone.  That includes you.”  She nodded and left as he logged into his latest game.   

Thirty minutes later she peered in his room.  He was oblivious to her presence.
  He had on a set of headphone and was chatting online as he and another group of gamers tried to conquer the world. 

She made a drink and took it outside next to the pool putting her feet in the water and watched the dog play in the yard with a small stuffed animal. Unbidden tears rolled down her cheek.  She felt the oppressive loneliness of not only that night but all of the ones in the past and all of the lonely nights yet to come.  As darkness fell she stood and called the little dog back into the house.  As she stood in the doorway, she could see a lone coyote out by the pond illuminated by the full moon.  He howled; an eerie lonely sound trying to summon his mate.  She shook her head and closed the door. 

Nestling herself in the couch, she half-heartedly watched an old re-run of Star Trek.  The small dog climbed on to her lap.  Numb, Cat reminisced remembering her life before she’d met Dominic.  Had she made a mistake by marrying him?  Her youth had held such promise and hope.  It had been the best time in her life. Staring off into space, her mind went back to her college days when she’d met her first love. 

Drifting off
, she remembered those days…   I noticed the two ninja bikes sitting in front of the condo, one red and one blue.  They sat still on their kickstands in the small patch of lawn at the foot of three concrete steps which led up to one of four two-story condos linked together to construct building E of the Highland Rim complex.  It was small as far as apartment complexes go.  There were only eight buildings including the leasing office. 

Sherry was my roommate; a gorgeous creature, six foot tall, thin, shoulder length wispy blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes and Arian features.  She was Miss University of Tennessee football and modeled for various companies across Knoxville.  Not only was she a beauty but brains as well, she was also a Mechanical Engineering major with a 4.0 average.   Sherry was outgoing and a social butterfly with multitude of friends at her beck and call. A crowd of hangers-on surrounded her wherever she went; tailgate parties, ball games or bar hopping.  Nary a Friday night went by without her having a rich date or a high visibility party. 

She came from Hartsville, Tennessee, a town that was so small it boasted a population of 458 people, where a BP gas station and a Dixie Queen, were its prime methods for weekend entertainment.  Teenagers would gather their trucks and cars into pods and flirt until the wee hours of the morning.  That was the entertainment part. 

I
met her parents one weekend when they came to visit.  They were country in every sense of the word and couldn’t be considered even mildly attractive from anyone’s point of view.  Her parents looked at her as if she were an alien, as if she were their child and they were proud but they were sure that there was no way that she could have come from their union.  I had to agree 100%.  It was like two cave crickets mating and their offspring turning out to be a monarch butterfly.

She was everything I wasn’t.  She was tall, blonde, feminine, beautiful, outgoing, disorganized, unreliable, messy, and social.  I was short, red headed, athletic, organized, a loner and an introvert with few social skills.  We had in common that we were both smart and cooperative education students at NASA’s Johnson Space Center every other semester.  Initially it was expedient that we were roommates since we could share the cost of living in both locations, school and work.  Over time, we became close friends, and found that though we had so many differences that we got along for some odd reason. 

She was always trying to get me to go out with her friends and become more of a social butterfly.  I was willing to sit at the condo and read fiction trash or study every night. I cleaned up behind her, accepted that she forgot to pick me up at the airport and nodded politely as men streamed through the apartment.  We balanced one another and she was content to complement our friendship with her outgoing spark versus my serious nature.

I loved her in the sense that she was a friend and had the best intentions for me.  I wanted to hate her because she was beautiful, brilliant and successful but couldn’t because she was also caring, honest and sincere.  I couldn’t say that I was the same. 

So, it wasn’t a surprise when after weeks of hounding me, I let her talk me into going out one night with her new boyfriend and his best friend as a blind date for me.  Her boyfriend was tall, dark and handsome.  Mark was a senior at the University of Tennessee studying avionics and was a candidate for the U.S. Air Force wanting someday to be a fighter pilot.  He was a swashbuckling, fearless, chance-taker on a blue ninja speed motorbike. He was also a bartender at the country club in Oak Ridge which was about 30 miles south west of Knoxville. 

Ben, his best friend was a lot like him but different in many ways.  He was shorter, about 5 ‘9” with a stocky, short, muscular build.  Dimples which cut deep in each cheek and the cleft in his chin made him a beautiful Kirk Douglas look-a-like. His red hair was short in a military buzz cut and he had beautiful azure blue eyes which twinkled when he smiled. He was also a daredevil with aspirations to be a Blackhawk chopper pilot and a red ninja bike to demonstrate his death defying attitude. 

The fateful day came.  Sherry and her boyfriend chose a four-star restaurant in downtown Knoxville off of Cumberland Avenue called the Copper Cellar for the fateful night.  The restaurant boasted expensive, succulent dishes and an extensive wine cellar.  My date was arrogant and self-centered and I didn’t care for him much.  Ben just wasn’t my type.  None the less, I was determined to make the best of it so we drank wine and laughed with no cares, as only the young can do. 

At the end of the evening my roommate went her separate way with her boyfriend and I was stuck for a ride home with the arrogant blind date.  He was irritating and had a smart mouth.  I knew that we didn’t have anything in common and was anxious for the night to be over.  He stopped in a parking space in front of my condo and I reached for the door handle wanting to be out and away from this asshole. It was obvious that we couldn’t stand one another, from both of our perspectives.  I said goodbye and put one foot out the door. 

He reached over and held my hand pulling me close to him for a goodnight kiss.  I recoiled and jerked away but a consistent pull combined with the wine made me relent so it could be over and I could be out of the car.  I found myself pressed against warm, inviting lips and felt a hot flash of lightning race through my hand and lips straight to my toes.  It was nothing like I had ever felt before.  It was an instant of lust ignited by passion and a deep seeded need, all competing at the same time.  I pulled away breathless and panting. 

Ben and I looked deep into one another’s eyes for a moment and then he smiled a sweet sardonic, self-confident smile as if he owned the world and knew it.  I pulled myself away and stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind me and double timed it down the steps to the front door of my condo.  With a twist of the lock, I opened the door stepped inside and closed the door behind me with a sharp click. 

The next day I came home from my statistics class and saw the two ninja bikes out in front of my condo, again.   It was a two story condo above a one story condo.  My downstairs neighbor was also a graduate student who was working on a nursing degree.  In fact most of the people in the condo community were escapees; graduate students who were lucky enough to live off campus who had tired of living so close to the University of Tennessee and the constant campus nightlife. 

The living room, kitchen and dining room were all one long room about 60’ by 50 foot.  On the front of the condo was a small porch but the back had a large wooden deck which overlooked a dense cope of woods.  As I walked through the door, I was not surprised to see my blind date sitting in my living room in my favorite tan leather recliner watching television and drinking a beer. 

I dropped by backpack on the counter which divided the kitchen from the dining room and opened a cream colored refrigerator to get a diet coke, ignoring the intruder for the moment.  Looking around, I noticed my roommate was missing but heard voices upstairs.  They were noises which suggested that I shouldn’t make my way up there to find out what was happening. 

“What are you doing here?”  I asked.

“I stopped by with Mark to visit Sherry.”  I stared at him as I leaned on the counter.  He set his beer on the nearby coffee table.  He leaned forward in the chair and turned off the television with the remote control.

“Truce?” He said.  “We got off on the wrong foot, Red.  Let’s at least be civil given Sherry and Mark are together.” 

“I can be civil but don’t expect anything more,” I replied a little sullenly and without much conviction, not sure if I had it in myself to be civil to someone who was so arrogant and self-centered. 

“You want to go for a ride?” Ben asked.  “Sounds like they just got started and are going to be a while”. 

My weak spot is motorcycles so I barely hesitated since I hadn’t been on a ride in years.  I mean, it’s just a motorcycle ride.  What could happen?

“I promise to be good”, he reassured me.

I shrugged trying to be non-chalant. “Sure. Why not?” 

Moments later, I mounted up behind him, wrapped both arms around his waist and we drove off at breakneck speed the wind wiping around us.   I pulled him closer as I held on for dear life.  I tucked my hands into the pockets of his black leather jacket and he put one hand down against my thigh pushing the inside of my leg against the outside of his.  We flew winding through downtown Knoxville and then out of town north on 65 exiting at the Clinton exit only to end up near Norris, Tennessee. 

Winding up the road next to the Clinch River below the dam, the water’s depth was measured in feet and you could see the black rock of the river bead.  Trees lined both sides of the road creating a dark, green, comforting canopy over the quiet road.  A brown grist mill with a large paddle wheel whipped by on the right.  Miles later he slowed the bike.  We stopped along the river and got off.  The cool breeze of autumn blew in the sweet smelling scent of woodsmoke from the surrounding the area.

We pulled off our helmets and then sat on the bank of the river and talked finding we had more in common than I would have ever thought.  We liked the same movies and books.  We had similar dreams.  He loved my red hair, freckles and green eyes putting on an Irish brogue and calling me “Red”.  

As the late afternoon waned into the evening, we regretfully climbed back on the bike and headed back for Knoxville.  Arriving at the condo, we found that we had it to ourselves and a note on the counter told us that Mark and Sherry had gone to a campus party and not to expect them back that night. 

Our lips touched again that evening with a flare igniting passion that could not be extinguished.  Naked and sweating, hours later, I had found what it meant to feel truly fulfilled as a woman, something no man had ever done before.  He made me forget about wanting sex and found instead a place where passion, sex and love all came together without wanting any of it.  The feelings I had that night were an inevitable tide racing forward that I couldn’t and didn’t want to stop.  It was that
day that I fell in love with Ben. 

The years of school passed and we studied.  We talked about house plans and chose names for children that we would eventually have.  I dreamed of red headed twins and our future; little league games leading eventually to graduations and grandchildren. 

At one point, I moved in with him and his brother, Joey, but it was short-lived.  One evening we received a call early in the morning hours.  It was the hospital calling to tell us not to hurry because Joey was dead; a car wreck victim. 

Ben took it hard and distanced himself from everyone who cared for him.  He was never the same.  Eventually we grew apart.  My coop education in Houston, leaving him alone in Knoxville made him easy prey to other women and drove one too many spikes between us. 

One fall I came back from Houston to visit him.  He lived in a third story apartment on campus.  He welcomed me with open arms.  My eyes were opened to what truly happening when the woman next door stopped by to say hi to him and I could hear their passionate argument through the closed door.  It was then that I realized that she and he had a relationship that was more than just next door neighbors.